missing nin vs teamwork

After all the angst that was the entire Chuunin exam arc, things settled down again - at least it seemed like that at the beginning. While most villagers were still depressed after the funeral of the 3rd Hokage, Sasuke's thoughts were only circulating around the happenings in the fight with Gaara. He was more than shocked to see what hidden power was within Naruto, and how he managed to overlook such power although they were in fact the whole time together.

But as always, things can't go by smoothly, and to push Sasuke's momentary feelings of inferiority even more, Itachi appeared with only one aim: Capturing Naruto, the kid with the kyuubi sealed inside and thus, fully ignoring Sasuke. The raven was utterly shocked when he happened to overhear the conversation between Asuma, Kurenai and some other shinobis, as he didn't understand what Itachi had in mind with Naruto. He immediately tracked off to look for Naruto, who had left with Jiraya before.

In the meanwhile, Itachi had found Naruto- but only a few moments later, a voice suddenly sounded from behind, which obviously belonged to Sasuke. With overflowing hatred, Sasuke powered up Chidori and rushed toward Itachi, vowing he'd kill him this time. Itachi however, hadn't any problems averting the attack while grabbing Sasuke's wrist only to break it.

Naruto wanted to interfere, but Sasuke immediately yelled he should stay aback since this was his fight. Itachi then proceeded with beating Sasuke really badly, until Sasuke couldn't resist anymore at all. In the end, he used his Sharingan to make Sasuke relive the day of the massacre, which sent Sasuke into an apathy like state.

If you ask me, the fight between those two Uchiha brothers at that time, was one of the most cruel ones so far. Maybe not physically (after all, the younger one of the two should cause even greater physical damage to someone, cough, like chidori-ng someone), but the mental level on which this fight took place was without doubt horrible. Sasuke who had trained like crazy, who had only lived as he stated himself for this moment, who had also grown up and improved much since that fateful day of the massacre - could again do nothing.

There was simply no difference between the present and the past.

Naruto was also very affected by all the happenings around him, torn between interfering the fight and ignoring Sasuke's warning to help him - but there was also the voice within him which told him he should let Sasuke fight his battle. After all, even if he had wanted, he wouldn't have beeen able do anything, seeing as Sasuke's powerful chidori was so easily avoided.

Later, after Jiraya finally appeared and Itachi was forced to make his leave, Naruto immediately rushed towards Sasuke, only to find him passed out from the mental shock he suffered from. Naruto then instantly decided to go after the elder Uchiha to take care of the business, since after all, actually Itachi had come for him and he was the reason Sasuke was hurt so badly.

He was determined to finish this off as soon as possible and I'm sure he would have done so, if Jiraya didn't stop him in the right second. He told him to stay calm, as this ninja is on a completely different level. Naruto was frustrated, but soon had found a new aim - finding Tsunade, the only one who could heal Sasuke at the moment.

This event was one of the turning points in the series. Sasuke once again had to forcefully learn what huge gulp was still between him and his brother, and all his efforts to get stronger in the past years seemed to have changed nothing at all.

I'm pretty sure at some point, this must have crushed something within Sasuke. While Naruto constantly improved and kept catching up with Sasuke, he himself slowly seemed to fall behind, and this key event probably just emphasized this even more. From the moment on he reopened his eyes, he wasn't himself anymore. Stronger than ever before, he was taken by the thought of proving his strength and once and for all if he was at least still stronger than Naruto.

Found at Chapter 147/8, Episode 84/5